Interrupting calls-in-progress utilizing call waiting features are well known in the art. Call waiting enables a party busy on another call to learn about an incoming call and gives the called party the opportunity to interrupt the ongoing call to accept the incoming call. While call waiting is a useful feature which enables a called party to discontinue lesser important telephone calls in favor of emergency or important calls, subscribers to a call waiting service may be annoyed by unwanted calls since typical call waiting features signal the called party with only a beep, or tone, to indicate another call is waiting. Furthermore, the original caller or called party may become annoyed when a new caller attempts to interrupt the current call-in-progress.
Intelligent call waiting, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,269 issued to Eisdorfer, addresses this problem by allowing a caller to determine ahead of time who may interrupt their calls-in-progress. If an authorized caller is trying to reach the subscriber while the subscriber is busy on another call, the subscriber will receive a notification, such as a beep, indicating that an authorized caller is trying to interrupt the current call-in-progress.
However, there may be certain individuals that the subscriber would never want to be interrupted, no matter who is trying to call the subscriber. For these individuals, the only way for the subscriber to suspend call-waiting is to enter a special code, e.g., *70, before making the call. However, if the individual initiates the call to the subscriber, the subscriber has no option of disabling call-waiting.
Thus, there exists a need for allowing a subscriber to prioritize his/her call-waiting features while communicating with predetermined individuals regardless of who initiated the call, i.e. establish a priority call-waiting capability.